Leader – Emily Leonard
Reporter – Ray Gribble
Species List – David Laurie

Fourteen WVBS members assembled at How Hill car park for a 6 mile walk around the surrounding area on public footpaths. The weather was overcast with a cool northerly breeze.
In her welcome speech Emily gave us some of the history of the site and pointed out that it was not a nature reserve, thus trying to manage our expectations of what to expect. It was totally unnecessary, as we recorded 66 species. The weather, however, had a damping effect on butterflies and dragonflies, dashing all hopes of Swallowtail butterfly which Emily had seen
during the previous week.

​Leader: Nick Edwards
Reporter: David Laurie
Photographs: Nick Edwards
Bird List: Alan Hughes

Firstly, a big thank you to Amy, our Pensthorpe guide who met 16 of us at 5:00am for our Dawn Chorus outing. It was a chilly, misty start (5°C) but with plenty of birds singing including Blackcap, Wren, Song Thrush and cawing Rooks.
In the park, were there Cattle or Little Egrets in the mist at Moon Water? Consensus was there were both. We found Little Egrets later but the Cattle Egrets had gone elsewhere, presumably in search of their favourite cattle.

Leader: Sue Gale
Reporters: Sue Gale 
On another beautiful blue morning we assembled in the Forestry Commission car park at Santon Downham. The first half dozen to arrive were dispatched along the river bank with Steve Chapman in
charge at 7.45. The earlier the better when it comes to the annual challenge of seeing a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (LSW). In fact, the rest of the group was only 20 minutes behind, and the first lot hadn’t yet seen the bird, although they had seen Mandarin ducks flying along the river. Soon after arrival Emily whispered that she thought she had seen it, and indeed she had! Many of us had reasonable but brief views in a fairly distant tree, of two birds, but they soon flew into the woods at the back. We waited for a while, and then decided to split up again, some of us waiting and hoping the birds would return, those who had seen enough leaving to look for Woodlark. 

Leader: Alan Hughes
Reporter: Jacquie Fenn
Bird List: Colin Fenn

A group of 16 members met at the Strumpshaw car park to start our walk at 9.30am. It was a very bright clear day with not a cloud in the sky and stayed that way all through the visit (thermals had been donned as a precaution by many).